With Mortal Kombat, one of the most groundbreaking and at the same time most controversial beat 'em-ups celebrates its 30th anniversary of the brand. For the first time in 1992, the beating game with the explicit depiction of violence in amusement arcades was published. The Fatalities has become increasingly violent over the years, but also a cult following.
Ed Boon and John Tobias designed one of the most violent video games of the time in the early 1990s - the brand has maintained this reputation to this day. The latest spin-off, Mortal Kombat 11 from 2019, also features top quality chopped, sliced and plated.
Fatalities: Form meat from pixel fighters
When Midway launched the first part of the Mortal Kombat series in 1992, hardly anyone could have imagined the success of the brawling game given the combative brutality. When Mortal Kombat became a trilogy three years later, players were far less surprised. From then on, new video games based on the brand were released regularly every two years – and the popularity is far from over.
Mortal Kombat has become a screen phenomenon, with movies appearing as well. Not all of them were successful; after all, the latest live-action film from 2021 was convincing.
The Klopp game also gained fame due to its explicit depiction of violence, which initially caused indignation in the United States, especially among parents. The game series had contributed to changing the understanding of a video game as a product with content that was always peaceful. So it wasn't a surprise that the debut in Germany was confiscated due to the level of violence. It was not until 2020 that indexing was lifted in this country at all.
The bit of pixel blood from back then can hardly be compared with the countless liters of lifeblood that players beat out of their opponents in Mortal Kombat 11. Like no other video game, Mortal Kombat is now a symbol for the profound changes in the understanding of pixel representations and their social acceptance. However, even today the title does not belong in the hands of children.
The game is legendary because of its sometimes weird fighters, but above all because of the fatalities, the finishing moves that players use to dismantle their opponents into their individual parts after a fight has been won. Meanwhile, the developers at Nether Realms have perfected the art of making molded flesh out of pixel fighters. Virtual blood gushes in fountains, body parts fly through the arenas, it smacks out of the boxes to match - and yet the brutal maneuvers are aesthetic in their own way.
From the start, Mortal Kombat was geared towards success. The game even surpassed the hit series Street Fighter, which is also still popular today - at that time the second part of the series was in competition.
To celebrate the brand, Nether Realm Studio released an anniversary video that combines old and new gameplay scenes as well as sequences from the movies. Some of the most popular characters also appear in the video, such as Sub-Zero, Kung Lao, Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage, Liu Kang or Raiden. For the mobile offshoot of Mortal Kombat there is a classic raid complete with voiceover by Christopher Lambert, who portrayed the god of thunder in 1995.
How it will continue with Mortal Kombat, however, is still unclear. Despite the round anniversary, the developers have not yet published any official information about Mortal Kombat 12.
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Mortal Kombat (2021) [German/OV] * | 4,99 EUR |
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